A color test using Mograph and a random effector, a multi-shader material on the squares, and a reflective floor surface.

The cool folks at Digital Media Artists of Orange County are having a meet-up on November 7th at 6:00 pm at the Microsoft Store in Mission Viejo. Marty Kane will be on hand to discuss plug-in alternatives for Cinema 4D. It's a much smaller group than DMALA and is highly recommended. You can RSVP through www.meetup.com/digitalmediaartists/events/244061929/meetup.com. 

What began as a simple extrude test took on a life of its own; an amalgam of Syd Mead and Saint-Saens. I'll be adding more chapters in the future.

Halloween is months away, but I'm getting a head start this year, mostly because I began a few projects in 2016 that didn't make the October 31st cut-off. This image was modeled using the sculpt tools in Cinema 4D. The folks at ZBrush won't be losing any sleep, but the sculpt tools in C4D are more than capable of getting the job done, as evidenced by this piece, which I started last summer (the head) and finished a few days ago.

It was rendered with Solid Angle's Arnold, a terrific--albeit somewhat pricey--rendering engine option, mostly used for photorealism. Arnold is node-based, much like Blackmagic's Fusion, and is tinkered with inside Cinema 4D's xpresso tool. It's surprisingly easy to use once you get the hang of it.

I rigged the mouth and hands, so maybe I'll post an animation as Halloween gets closer. And doesn't stuff look uber-cool in black and white?

To produce this video I used a variety of techniques and software, including Cinema 4D for animation, Fusion for compositing, Final Cut X for editing and sound work, and Photoshop for everything in between. A special shout-out to the always entertaining "Noseman" Pozantzis, who explained one of the x-ray effects during a seminar at Siggraph 2016. The process combines hard shadows and the cel shader in C4D to make things awesome from the inside out.

Doodling fun with extrusions, inner extrudes and beveling. It's modeled from a single cube divided into ten sections. A clean mesh coupled with a bevel deformer created the soft edges. I used the plexiglas setting in the reflectance channel to make the surface resemble plastic. It looks like something a robot might cough up in a Transformers movie.

After a ten-year hiatus, eggtion's nifty Roll-It plug-in for Cinema 4D is back. The plug-in makes it easier to roll objects and drop them to a floor, even if the floor shape is deformed. It works with Cinema 4D Release 16 and above, and is free for private and commercial projects. Check it out (it's fun to play with even if it's not part of your current workflow):